Space - It's Rather Large

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was watching that. nothing quite as emotional as seeing those engines light.

True that.  Although technology can do some amazing things these days there's nothing quite as wondrous and inspiring as seeing the raw power of the shuttle.

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Water of Mars?  Pretty amazing time lapse photos whatever it turns out to be. 

"The best explanation for these observations so far is the flow of briny water," said Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/news/mro20110804.html

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Seen similar things like this before that show the scale of objects in space, this one goes the other way to sub-atom object too.  Very cool.

http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/

Love the description of Planck length ( 0.00000000000000000000000000000000001m  )...."Any length shorter makes no physical sense"   

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so
0.000000000000000000000000000000000001m

woudl be just crazy .. LOL

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Just a day after announcing the discovery of the first Earth-size planets ever detected outside our Solar System, scientists have confirmed the existence of two even smaller worlds.

There is something very unusual about these objects, however.

It appears they are the roasted remains of planets that spent a period of time inside the outer layers of their star.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16279016

Pretty cool stuff.  The way they've worked all this out is shown in that link and rather interesting although I still can't shake the felling when reading stuff like this that there's a hell of a lot more guesswork going on than they are prepared to admit.

[T_M_C]

Picture captures a billion stars


Heres the story
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17539315

Interactive Viewer ( zoom in for really amazing detailed views )
http://djer.roe.ac.uk/vsa/vvv/iipmooviewer-2.0-beta/vvvgps5.html

TMC

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Awesome.  I read the BBC article at work yesterday, but hadn't seen that interactive viewer.

Zooming in on that pic is simply mind blowing.  It's just impossible to get your head around the sheer scale and quantities involved in these things.  To paraphrase a famous physicist....if you think you can comprehend it then you clearly don't fully understand it.

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Yep, i totally agree.

Really puts it all into perspective doesn't it.

TMC

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How clear are the skies down where you are Maked?  I've always fancied getting a telescope, but there's so much light pollution here it would be a waste of time. 

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Ahh.

I actualy used to do a lot of astronomy when i was in my early 20's.

Hacked apart a friends binoculars at one point to make a telescope.

I kept making excuses for years when he kept asking for them back.  

I was able to resolve the rings of Saturn through binoculars.  Best object to see in the night sky by far.

Unfortunately, light pollution has always been a real problem.

I'm in the town center which makes any kind of astronomy impossible really.

But, the countryside is really close by and if i had transport i could get into the countryside in a matter of minutes, or even on Dartmoor where i could get really dark skies.

But any kind of town astronomy is going to be really difficult.

Then there is the problem of the british weather.

Cloudy skies are always another problem too.

Ideally, you'd want a small observatory or garden shed to use.

And a lot of small scopes can be computer controlled now for constant tracking and object finding.

So, you could operate the scope remotely from a shed and output the display to computer monitor in your house for instance.

The quality of scopes are awsome now too, for the price.

I suppose, like computers you can spend the earth on equipment, but all you need to get started are some decent binoculars.

The moon is really good through binoculars as well, although it tracks across the sky really quickly.

I always found it a really rewarding hobby.  Well worth persuing if you can put up with the negatives.

And i think 'The Sky At Night' is the UK's longest running continuous programme now.

I like to catch it when i can, just to keep up to date.

I do little more than the odd bit of stargazing now and again.

TMC

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I was able to resolve the rings of Saturn through binoculars.  Best object to see in the night sky by far.

That's really cool.  It was only recently I found out you could see Saturn through binoculars.  I always assumed it was too far away for anything other than big telescopes on earth.

And i think 'The Sky At Night' is the UK's longest running continuous programme now.

I like to catch it when i can, just to keep up to date.

Yeah I watched the 55th anniversary programme a couple of nights ago. Sir Patrick is a legend.

[T_M_C]

At the time of writing the Mars Curiosity Rover is 3 hours from touchdown.

A July 16th NASA press release stated: “During a critical period lasting only about seven minutes, the MSL spacecraft carrying Curiosity must decelerate from about 13,200 mph (about 5,900 meters per second) to allow the rover to land on the surface at about 1.7 mph (three-fourths of a meter per second). ‘Those seven minutes are the most challenging part of this entire mission,’ said Pete Theisinger, JPL's MSL project manager. The 6-wheeled rover will have two separate cameras side-by-side similar to human eyes that will see in color. Built by Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, Curiosity will photograph as it searches for life, or fossils of life.

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/jul/HQ_12-235_MSL_Prelanding.html

Fingers crossed it makes it down safely.

The last 2 rovers, Spirit and Opportunity were spectacularly succesful.

I think they were originaly only designed to last a couple of months, but went on to last years.

In fact, i think i read that both are still transmitting back to earth, but only one can still move.

TMC

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Yeah I've been watching that.  It's already sent back some pics so it seems to be working ok.  Can't wait to see the colour HD images it sends back.

The mission aim is pretty cool too, targeting the mountains so it can unearth samples from millions of years ago to see if it could have supported life.

[T_M_C]

Yup, glad to see it made it down safely.

Here's a Nasa video of the Curiosity descent.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?collection_id=14661&media_id=149974611

TMC

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That's pretty cool to see.

Even though I knew this thing would be packed with a few cameras, I didn't realise just how many.  Seventeen apparently, and one of them can read the small print on a $ bill at 10 feet so should send back some amazing images.